Nuclear Power Units to be Restarted at Bruce A Station in Ontario

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). Bruce Power LP (Tiverton, Ontario), a joint venture between British Power LLC (Peel Park, East Kilbride, United Kingdom), Cameco Corporation (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan), Powers Workers' Union (Toronto, Ontario), and The Society of Energy Professionals (Toronto, Ontario) is preparing to restart Units 03 and 04 at the Bruce A Nuclear Station located in Tiverton, Ontario in the second quarter of 2003.

British Energy is in the process of selling its interest in the nuclear plant to current partners plus BPC Generation Infrastructure (Toronto, Ontario).

Bruce Power received authorization to begin refueling the units, and is awaiting final regulatory approvals to start them up. Units 03 and 04 originally came on line in 1978 and 1977 and were laid up by Ontario Power Generation 1995 thru 1998 along with Units 01 and 02. Bruce Power has spent about $400 million to refurbish these units that are CANDU Heavy Water Reactors utilizing natural uranium dioxide fuel. Each reactor has Babcock & Wilcox (B&W) boilers that produce 10.4 million pounds per hour of 650psig @ 493F steam to run the Parsons 825-megawatt (MW) steam turbine/generators.

Once Units 03 and 04 are running Bruce Power will begin to evaluate the restart of Unit 01 and 02. When Ontario Power Generation was operating the units there had been estimates of up to $2 Billion and four years to refurbish and bring the other 1,650 MW online.

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Bruce Power LP was formed to be one of the first companies to operate in Ontario's deregulated power market and it took possession of the 6,660 MW Bruce A and Bruce B Stations in July 2000. Since that time Bruce B has operated fairly well and Bruce Power has been working on restoring Units 03 and 04. This return will up the available power generation from 3,360 MW to 5,010 MW or 49.1%. Bruce Power employs about 3,000 personnel and is one of the largest power stations in the world (2,300 acres).